Survivor
by Fanboy1069
Summary: Glen finds a lone wanderer who is grimly silent about the obvious bite mark, long-healed and badly scarred, on his left wrist. When the stranger sees the town's walls, he has second thoughts, and finally breaks his silence.


After they arrived he just stood there for a while, it seemed like hours now, just staring blankly at the gate. He hadn't so much as blinked when it rolled slowly aside. Glen had gone inside to explain who he was, and minutes later, people started showing up to see the miracle man. After a few minutes of ignoring their questions, avoiding their eyes, and just staring, staring, staring at the gate as though it was an elf riding a unicorn, they started getting nervous, and attempts to talk to him faltered, went awkward, then silent. A few had stayed to watch him, after all, that thing slung on his back looked scary as hell, and it was stained with old blood.

It was after the doctor had examined his arm, gave her allowance that yes, it was certainly delivered by human, or formerly human, teeth, after the cheer went up, that he seemed dragged back into the moment. He looked at them, seeing them for the first time, and the most interesting thing about them was how clean they all were. They'd been through a battle recently, many were bandaged, all were wary. The worst thing about them was the hope in their eyes. Hope that he realized he was the source of. He opened his mouth and a croak came out. He hawked, spat, and tried again.

"You think I'm some sort of gift, sent to deliver you from the apocalypse? You couldn't be more wrong. You think my survival is a miracle, that it spells the end of this nightmare? Well, there you're half right. Let's face it: my survival was miraculous. I won the lottery four times in a row in a span of minutes: I killed a couple dozen zeke on my lonesome, CHECK. I got bit by the last one, while stading in the first aid aisle of a drug store, not even a step from the forty-odd bottles of hydrogen peroxide and witch hazel sitting there in the unlooted store, CHECK. I just happened to know, not only a little about first aid, but a lot, being preternaturally clumsy and having done myself up a treat on occasions too numerous to mention, CHECK. Enough that after cleaning the wound with six bottles of peroxide and one of witch hazel, I knew enough to hop the counter at the pharmacy, and eat a whole Z-pac (and there's some irony for you, right there), AND take four shots of injectible broad-spectrum anti-biotic right to the bite, CHECKITTY-CHECK-CHECK.

Now, I'm going to tell you something, and you think about it, and you'll know I'm right. Every damn one of you is a walking miracle. You've survived this long against zeke, and crazy, and just plain random frontier life, with no ER, no cops, no paramedics, not even a damn doctor. Ever wonder why, or how? Well I can't tell you why YOU survived, but I can tell you how.

Because you are the luckiest people left on earth, that's how. Obi-Wan was a liar when he said: "Luck? In my experience, there's no such thing." He'd seen Jar-Jar, he knew luck was real. He wasn't just lying to himself and Han, he was just plain wrong. Luck is real: some have it, many didn't. All the ones who didn't are dead. The luckiest of those are lying on the ground rotting peacefully. The really unlucky ones, they're all zeke, or walkers, or whatever cute lil' nickname you call them by. But not any of you.

You've been through hell, no, you're IN hell, and surviving. Some of you may even have dreams of living behind those walls of yours. That these are the end times, and if you wait it out, tough it out, what? God will send forth His army, and save you all?

You may be right. But I am no gift from God, whatever my mother may have named me. I'm still standing, not because I'm lucky, but because God doesn't want me to die until I'm the last living soul on earth. I'm not salvation; another group, smarter than you, put that to the test. The bite scar's really impressive, isn't it? Look a little higher: to my wrist. That's a manacle scar, and here's another one on the other one: got 'em on my ankles too.

They kept me chained to a gurney and ran experiments on me for months. Toward the end, some were, I think, out of sheer spite. Just before I cut his head off, the head researcher admitted that they couldn't find anything in me that explained my immunity. They made serum after serum out of my blood and tested them, first on prisoners, then on their own least desirables, then on each other. All of them turned when my blood got in them, and turned worse than a bite did it. Faster, more painful, uglier.

I am not your salvation. You are not mine. The reason I'm alive is not because I'm lucky; it's because I want to die, and I'm the unluckiest man alive, and God hates me and wants me to suffer.

Well, I'm done playing it His way. I'm not going to come in, and make friends, and breathe easy for a while. I'm not going to watch as your walls come down, and the zeke pour in, and you scream and die and walk again. Me and the only frined I have, this here naginata I made out of a pickaxe handle and a machete, we're leaving. If you had any decency or mercy, you'd shoot me in the back as I went. But you won't, because God won't let you. He'll make you mistake sparing me for mercy."

With that, the stranger turned and walked away, his odd, bloodstained weapon slung like a rifle on his shoulder, towing his odd wagon with bike tires behind him, piled with whatever it was he thought was worthy of the ride. Rick looked up at Sasha on the tower, shook his head slightly, and went back inside. Saha sighted in on the stranger, and watched him walk away. She was still undecided about shooting him when he turned with the road and went out of sight. 


End file.
